 I just perform better with coffee. I don't know. Wakey, wakey! Okay, okay. Talking to you, not to the camera. Sweet. Being creative means there's two components. There's one where you're tapping into like what is like a original idea coming from your soul and your true identity. And then there's like the second kind of part where you're like listening. It's about being receptive. There's a creativity in that as well. My work is very optical. There's like a chaotic element to the work where the colors are swirling all around. But there's also like the controlled element to it. I'm pursuing beauty. I'm pursuing beautiful images, but also like a beautiful experience. As a kid I just had a very supportive, just a creative family. Always encouraged me to be creative myself. I've always had art in my life in one way or another. It's not always painting. I was big into sketching and played around with animation and all kinds of stuff. As I was growing up I ran a gallery for five years where I showed other people's art. And then I was like if I don't pursue my dream of being an artist full time then I'll forever hate myself. So I quit all my jobs, quit the gallery and I'm taking a leap of faith here. I went like deeply into debt and I like pulled out of it. And I was just kind of like a leap of faith. Yeah it was scary to take that leap of faith. But I think it's a responsibility for artists to be outside of their comfort zone to show other people that that's possible. And that's what being creative is all about. It's about doing it differently. And that's the reason to hustle. And you have to stay fluid to mold with the ever changing market. The only thing that's consistent is my persistence. Physical motion is totally crucial to my process. It's all about motion. It's all about the physical movement of paint and the natural motion. I'm just fascinated with what nature is doing on its own. There's the artist hand component in that where I'm like setting these things into motion. But at the end of the day I don't own like that parabola like sine wave or anything. That's just in like the fabric of like the universe. And like I'm just kind of looking at it through like an artistic lens with like a rainbow of colors and presenting it. I usually spend the entire day or days in advance like prepping, like assembling my arsenal of paint, tuning all my like machines, and assembling all my canvases. And then it's like a creative like surge, like almost like a trance where I'll do like 10, like sometimes even like 20 paintings and just like let it let it all happen. Let it all kind of flow and then kind of quiet my mind because I'll be super critical on myself. So I have to like create a lot and then like let it all dry, come back another day and look at it all and then like kind of edit and select from there because I have like a criteria that's like ever changing it. Like one is good, what works, what doesn't work. Yeah. So the main one is the bicycle spin machine, which is basically like a cannibalized bicycle, which I've reoriented from being like vertical to being like horizontal. And I can pedal the crank and it rotates the canvas as opposed to like a wheel of a bike. That's like the crux of all of my paintings pretty much. One key part about my process is that I have the canvas stationary when I load it with the paint and then I spin it. That gives me a lot of control actually because it's like, I'm kind of loading it up. I'm doing, manipulating the paint with whatever travels or palette knives or tools, even just my hands into the paint and it's totally stationary. And then I'm essentially expanding that image. And then I've developed on that the other interacting component, which is the swinging like trapeze or swinging trough. It's basically like a trough of paint, which has three walls of a platform on the bottom and one side is open and it sort of dispenses paint out of one side of it. And that swings over top of like a horizontal spinning canvas. And so the results is the relationship between these two machines, like the centrifugal motion and essentially like the pendulum of the trapeze. There's also a different pendulum I use where instead of a trough, it's just like a paint can with a hole in it and that is more for like elliptical pendulums. So there's that as well. I use a lot of paint. Part of the thing that's like unique about my process is that there's just so much, it's like excessive use of paint. I put more paint probably on the floor and my pants and the walls than is actually on the canvas. It's definitely impactful. It makes people think it affects people. How do I choose colors? I do tend to lean towards like bright energetic colors because I believe in like positive energy and you know positive vibes. That's really important and I think like bright colors and movement help to kind of go in that direction. But there's also the emotional side. So there's a fullness to the color where it like ranging from your darker, deeper, moodier, more tertiary tones all the way to your like bubblegum pink blow your brains out like you know. All of that. It's really an exercise of letting go. Letting go of my own expectations. Letting go of myself and like what I think is good or bad like letting go of that. Letting what happened happen and being still in my mind enough that I don't have that reflexive know. Before you do anything the first like thing is like no. Like you know like and then you can say yes but you're gonna say no first. Like it's hard to say yes immediately and so I'm trying to not do either. Like not say yes, not say no but just like be aware and almost like watch myself from a third person like perspective. I'm like up in the corner of the room watching Cal and the painting happen and when I do that it's more of like tapping into like like the nature of it. And then it's really interesting because when I do do that and I come back then it's like it's stronger. Like when I do assert a little bit more of my choices they're very kind of precise. Like either I stop or I start or I destroy or I create they're like these like kind of nodes in this like otherwise like totally transient like loose kind of like third person space. How do I know like when it's done it's a conversation. So I'm like having a conversation with the painting it sounds kind of weird but yeah I'm not talking to the painting I'm listening and I'm not listening with my ears but I'm kind of like listening with my eyes and listening to like what it's telling me and if it tells me something interesting then I'm like okay that's a pass but if it's like if it's telling me some old dusty thought then it's like can you build on that idea? You know and that's where I have to go back in and I continue to paint. So I'm just trying to like be quiet and not assert what I think is good and just like let it organically present itself and if it does then awesome and if it doesn't then awesome. I want to be a successful artist and so what is a successful artist to me? That's where I can support like myself one day like a family and like live like a decent life solely through my art but on the more interpersonal side like interacting with the public I want to be successful in the way that I inspire the world. I mean that's kind of huge but I think that's a pretty good goal.